Wedding
by The Die Hard
Summary: Just a drabble. What Chloe always wanted to say.


What Chloe Always Wanted to Say

Just a drabble, and I'll probably delete it after the AlMiles fantasy (in which they simultaneously get Lana to throw over Lex and jointly marry their pathetic selves) finally ruins any remaining semblance of Superman in Smallville, and Blah-na lovers can just go back to their psychiatric treatments right now, but just for the fun of it...

Wedding

Chloe stood perfectly relaxed, smiling benignly at the repulsive spectacle of the two most repulsive people she personally knew smiling sappily at each other, as if they weren't already planning how to use the other for something unethical at best. She wore with equanimity the unattractive bridesmaid's dress Lana had picked out, carefully selected to ensure that Chloe's natural vibrant beauty would be buried under an unflattering color and a subtly bad fit.

Lana went to great lengths to protect her fairy tale of her perfect day, although seriously, the thousand-dollar pancake makeup job, and three-thousand-dollar hairstyle, and hundred-thousand-dollar dress did little to change the usual impression made by the pancake makeup and superglued hair and look-at-me clothes Lana always fancied.

Chloe watched the ceremony with a detached, distant smile. Let them have their photo-op. Jimmy was off to one side with his digicam, and he wasn't wasting his time on the Luthor lovebird TV spectacle.

The priest-for-hire reached the part she'd been waiting for, and she straightened up. Clark shot her a nervous glance. The change in her heart rate had probably alerted him to the impending disaster, but for once, even he wasn't going to be fast enough.

Neither dealing with people nor dealing in words had ever been Clark's forte.

"If anyone here has any reason to object to this holy union...

"Actually, no," she said smoothly, in a strong, carrying voice. From the corner of her eye, she saw Jimmy bring up the digicam. "I can't think of any two people who deserve each other more. But holy? On the one hand, we have Lex Luthor," she inclined her head towards Lex's startled, angry face, "Who kidnaps people, and experiments on them, and tortures them, because of some kind of obsession about what the space rocks might have done to them, and never mind that he's a meteor freak himself. At least a dozen of his former employees have been 'disappeared' after last being seen with him, and for all that he hires drug-addicted ex-cons for security guards, dead bodies turn up on his property with disturbing regularity."

She turned to Lana, her eyes raking momentarily across Clark's frozen face off to the side. "And then we have Miss Perfect here, the head cheerleader and homecoming queen, who sent a Dear John video to her boyfriend a week after he shipped out to Afghanistan, and jumped straight onto Clark after ignoring him for years. Then she threw over Clark for the football coach without so much as a "sorry," and lied about herself -- as a student -- sleeping with him, as staff. Then she dumped the football coach when he wasn't so popular anymore and went after Clark again. And then, when Clark got tired of her snooping and sneaking, ran straight from a night in bed with him to getting herself pregnant by Lex, as if Lex couldn't afford a condom. Assuming the baby is his, of course, although with Lana, that's hardly a certain bet.

"She lies to everybody, and when caught at it, throws hissy fits about people keeping secrets from her, even though she demands that everyone else keep HER secrets, including from whoever her baby's daddy might be. She tried to snoop around in my computer -- and yes, Lana, did you think I wouldn't know about that? -- and Clark's, and Lex's -- and Lex, old man, you maybe better learn a little more about password protection, because your bride-to-be isn't very bright, but she does spend a lot of time poking her nose into other people's business.

"Little Miss Pity-me also always expects the whole world to hand her everything on a silver platter, and doesn't believe she owes anything in return, so Lex, you might want to have a lawyer that she hasn't gone behind your back and whined about how unfair everybody always is to her -- yet -- to take a second look at your pre-nup. She's been sponging off me for years, not that my family has a lot left, thanks to yours."

Chloe took a careful breath and turned to Clark. She'd rehearsed this enough, it shouldn't be so hard, but it was. "And you. Mr. "I still love Lana, but I can't tell her." So you unloaded your personal problems on me. Every. Damn. Day. You know what, Clark? The counseling and health clinic at the school is free. I can handle being nothing to you but a search engine, but if you want advice on your love life, read the Dear Abby columns archived at the paper."

Yanking her eyes away from Clark's blood-drained face, she met Lionel's speculative gaze. His eyes were wide with -- appreciation? Admiration? She started to say something, then shook her head slightly. She'd had this timed out. "So, no. No one has any reason to object to this union, as much as they really ought to. May they be very happy together. As much as any two snakes can be."

"That's enough," Lex snapped, having finally decided on whether to direct his attention to Lana or to Chloe. Lana had opened her mouth to try to interrupt Chloe, but she couldn't match the reporter's firm voice or concise delivery. She had turned to Lex for protection, eyes calculatingly pleading, and Lex had fallen for it for a few seconds, until he realized her quivering was sheer helpless rage.

Chloe stared at him. She wasn't fooled, either. She'd let herself be taken in by Lana's manipulations for years, out of sympathy. She had had to have it beaten into her head that Lana no more deserved to manipulate people out of sympathy than she or ten dozen others did.

"No, Lex, it's not enough. Not by half. But the rest you can read about in the Daily Planet, where it's all set up on time-release against the next time I have an "accident"." She looked down in disgust at the second-rate dress. "And Lana, I'll leave this piece of trash in the bathroom so you can get your deposit back, at least." There. If that wasn't enough of an insult to a Luthor, she didn't know what else could be. "Jimmy?"

Jimmy hurried out after her, an evil grin splitting his face that made him look remarkably pixie-like.

She stripped and changed into the sports clothes she'd left in a gym bag, and jogged out to meet Jimmy already in the car. "How'd it go?"

"You rock, my lady!"

"I meant the video." She smacked him on the arm.

"You ever doubted me? I'm insulted."

"No, really, what all did you get?"

"Hah! I thought Lex's ears were going to explode right off the side of his head. Lana looked positively like a witch."

"Gods, I hope not."

"Why? That's just what she usually looks like, minus the batting eyelashes."

"Lana IS the descendant of a witch. And she's been possessed before. If she -- never mind. What else?"

"A really creepy shot of old man Luthor giving you the hairy eyeball. He looked like that the last time he was on the front page gloating about a takeover. Me, I'd stay away from that dude."

"Me too. Long story. You got a good shot of that?"

"Of course. But you want the best part? I think CK fainted."

"What?"

"Really. You can see it right on the video. I was panning past Mrs. Kent -- and boy, did she look like she was sucking a lemon -- and CK went total whiteout. His brain just kind of left his body. Nothing left there but a wax statue."

"I was kind of hard on him," Chloe mumbled

"You weren't nearly hard enough. He treats you like crap. I've seen people be more considerate to their little sisters."

"I am NOT his little sister!"

"No, you're a brilliant and beautiful woman, and he's a clueless jerk. A big, sometimes useful clueless jerk, but he knows less about girls than anyone I've ever met."

Chloe smiled sadly. "Maybe it's just people in general he doesn't know much about."

"No argument there, but why are we talking about CK? You just blew off Lex Luthor's wedding of the century in front of the whole world. You better write it up before anyone else does."

"Jimmy, I can't publish my own scandal."

"I'll bet you Lexie's entire car collection that Lois is waiting by her computer for you to send it to her."

Chloe brightened. "You know, I don't think I'll take that bet." She fished out her too-small phone and tapped a speed dial. "Lois? I did it. You want to write it, or shall I? Okay, then come on over. Bring coffee. The good stuff! You can watch the video. Jimmy's a genius with those things." She winked at Jimmy. "Probably not a Pulitzer, but definitely pay-per-view."

Lois' excited participation could probably be heard in the car behind them.


End file.
